Can't sleep, don't rush to take medicine, try these 9 tricks

"I didn't sleep well, quickly take a few sleeping pills" "Drink more wine before going to bed, sleep more steadily" "Melatonin is safe and effective, specializing in insomnia" "Can't sleep at night, make up for sleep during the day"... Sorry to tell you, these are sleep misunderstandings. Most insomnia should start from adjusting the lifestyle, and quickly learn the "Great Law of Sleep Aid" with experts.

From November 20 to November 24, 2019, the 5th Tsinghua Forum on Sleep Medicine and the 5th Advanced Seminar on diagnosis and treatment of sleep breathing disorders, hosted by Beijing Tsinghua Changgeng Hospital, affiliated to Tsinghua University, were held in Beijing. Experts from home and abroad discussed a number of topics such as children's sleep breathing disorders, adult sleep breathing disorders, sleep disorders and age.

Dealing with insomnia taking medicine is just the next step

A World Health Organization survey found that about 27 percent of people have sleep problems. According to the 2015 China Sleep Index Report, about 31.2% of people in China have serious sleep problems. The 2018 report shows that about 16% of people sleep less than 6 hours at night, and up to 83.81% of people are often plagued by sleep problems. The incidence of insomnia in adults is as high as 38.2%, and the prevalence of sleep apnea in people aged 30 to 69 years is 23.6%.

According to the latest international classification of sleep diseases, there are nearly 100 kinds of sleep disorders that have been identified, of which the sleep disorders with the highest incidence and the greatest harm mainly include two categories, one is "can't sleep", including various types of insomnia or biorhythmic wake-up disorders, and the other is "sleep badly", represented by sleep breathing disorders.

Ye Jingying, director of the Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery of Tsinghua Chang Gung Hospital, introduced that many patients who seem to have insomnia are not really insomnia, but the sleep waking phase disorder caused by biorhythm disorders. Each cell in our body has a clock-like structure inside, and there is also a "clock" center in the brain, which controls all physiological activities of the human body, including sleep, and when these biological clocks do not match the day and night rhythms produced by the rotation of the earth, there will be symptoms of "insomnia" such as not being able to sleep at night and lacking energy during the day.

If these patients are treated as insomnia, they will have a half-effort effect and are prone to potential complications. Therefore, when "can't sleep", you must not simply buy some "sleeping pills", let alone take a large amount of sleeping pills, but should be targeted under the guidance of professional doctors.

In addition, some patients use alcohol to assist sleep, which is not a good choice. Although alcohol can shorten the time to fall asleep, it can affect the structure of sleep, so long-term use of this method is not recommended.

Experts teach you to learn the "Dafa of Sleep Aid."

Director Ye Jingying introduced that from the perspective of etiology, most of the insomnia is related to factors such as lifestyle, surrounding environment, and social environment. Therefore, the most reasonable treatment for insomnia should first focus on lifestyle adjustment and other aspects, which is also the currently recognized first-line treatment for insomnia, which is medically called "cognitive behavioral therapy".

When insomnia occurs, excessive attention to insomnia should be avoided, and emotions such as anxiety should be avoided. Experts recommend cognitive behavioral therapy under the guidance of a professional, including recording sleep and determining average sleep time; developing a sleep schedule based on average sleep time; and adjusting sleep time weekly until daytime function returns to normal or acceptable levels.

In addition to this, here are 9 ways to try:

1. Avoid tobacco, alcohol, greasy diet, and a lot of exercise within three hours before going to bed;

2. Avoid strong lights, noise and other stimuli, and do not do activities that make yourself easy to get excited before going to bed, it is best not to look at mobile phones, etc.;

3. Regardless of the length of sleep at night, get up on time every day;

4. Do not sleep for a long time during the day;

5. Leave the bed after waking up;

6. Go to bed at night when you are sleepy, do not go to bed too early. Because the melatonin in our body is slowly released two to three hours before falling asleep;

7. If you wake up for more than 20 minutes at night or start to feel frustrated with sleep, get up and leave the bedroom until you are sleepy again;

8. Receive enough sunlight exposure outdoors during the day and increase the amount of exercise during the day, which can help the body secrete melatonin that is enough to maintain sleep;

9. The ambient temperature during sleep is also very important, about 20 ° C is more appropriate, especially pay attention to not overheating.

Melatonin is not reliable for insomnia

Melatonin is an amine hormone produced by the pineal glands of mammals and humans that regulate sleep rhythms. At present, melatonin in different dosage forms is abundant, which can be easily bought on major e-commerce websites and purchasing platforms. In addition, merchants often advocate their "strong security, good quality and low price, and no dependence after use", which is favored by many white-collar workers who are "under pressure". Even many people take it as a sleep aid and health care holy product for a long time.

Can melatonin cure insomnia? Is it safe to "prescribe medicine" to yourself? For some patients taking melatonin to treat insomnia, at the forum, Phyllis Zee, a tenured professor in the Department of Neurology of Northwestern University, and Professor Lu Lin, president of the Sixth Hospital of Peking University, agreed that there is not enough data to show that melatonin can effectively treat insomnia.

According to reports, melatonin as a signal of human biorhythm, for patients with rhythm disorders, as well as people with jet lag, the administration of long-acting sustained-release melatonin preparations can help form a good sleep rhythm. However, at present, there is no such preparation on the market in China.

It is worth noting that melatonin preparations are not currently controlled by the drug management department, and their safety, including the purity, concentration and toxicity of drugs, are still hidden dangers.

Experts say that short-term use of melatonin is relatively safe, and long-term risk of causing endocrine system disorders. Therefore, it is not recommended that people take melatonin for a long time.

"Snoring" is too severe to see a doctor

"Poor sleep" is a sleep dysfunction caused by a decrease in sleep quality due to various reasons. The most common form is sleep-disordered breathing. Sleep dyspnea refers to breathing disorders caused by stenosis of the upper airway or abnormal respiratory drive during sleep, of which obstructive sleep apnea (commonly known as snoring) is the most common, and clinically can be diagnosed according to the patient's symptoms and polysomnography monitoring (PSG).

Studies have shown that the case fatality rate of patients with untreated severe snoring is 3.8 times higher than that of the general population, and the case fatality rate of cardiovascular disease-related diseases is 5.2 times higher than that of the general population. Due to the frequent occurrence of apnea or insufficient ventilation during sleep, the oxygen content in the blood is reduced, which causes frequent awakenings during sleep, resulting in the destruction of sleep structure, resulting in daytime sleepiness, and secondary to multisystem damage throughout the body, inducing or aggravating hypertension, coronary heart disease, arrhythmia, cerebrovascular disease, cognitive dysfunction, type 2 diabetes and other diseases.

Director Ye Jingying reminded that when adults have severe night snoring, and the snoring is irregular or the patient consciously holds his breath, headache in the morning, dry mouth, and unexplained daytime sleepiness, etc., while the patient is more obese, abdominal obesity is obvious, the neck is short, the jaw is small or retracted, full attention should be paid to considering the possibility of sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome. At this time, you should consult a professional doctor in the hospital to see if there is a need for multi-sleep monitoring, early diagnosis, early treatment, not only can improve sleep quality, improve life, work and study status, but also effectively prevent or slow down the occurrence and development of multi-system damage throughout the body, improve the quality of life. Text/Reporter Li Jie